Dana Lewis
Future Bounce danamichellelewis(at)gmail.comOpenAPS,org, OpeningPathways.org
After building her own DIY “artificial pancreas,” Dana Lewis helped found the open source artificial pancreas movement (known as “OpenAPS”), making safe and effective artificial pancreas technology available (sooner) for people with diabetes around the world. She is a passionate advocate of patient-centered, -driven, and -designed research. Rather than coming from a traditional engineering background, Dana brings together a mix of technical and communication skills and a unique perspective to focus on bringing together individuals regardless of their traditional “role” in healthcare. She is an experienced community builder and facilitator and has taken a leadership role in a number of research projects that bring together diverse perspectives (academic, industry, government, and patient communities, to name a few). She is currently collaborating with, PI, or co-PI on research projects with different teams from MIT, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, Arizona State University, and others around the world. These teams bring together computer and data scientists, healthcare providers, economists, social and behavioral scientists, and others alongside patients to study the different ramifications of projects in open source, patient-led communities. Most notably, she currently serves as Principal Investigator for a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded grant project called “Opening Pathways” (OpeningPathways.org) to learn more about patient-led innovation and scientific discovery, and scale it in additional patient communities.